Living for Disco

My belly full of sushi and beer, I hugged my friend goodbye and clambered on board my beloved purple bicycle for the journey home. It was late, and I was nervous – I don’t much like being out and about in Windhoek at night on my own. The streets are deserted and eerie. Everything is still, apart from the odd piece of rubbish blown by the breeze, which feels like the breath of old souls on your skin. Drunks occasionally lurch from the shadows into the bright puddle cast by a streetlamp. It’s like a ghost town; a menacing one that means you no good.

I came up the hill and around the roundabout by the barred up, darkened windows of the Pink Panther Videorama, hearing shouting and the grumbling of pool tables from the Casino gambling shop next door. A group of toothless girls, past their prime, sat outside on the steps, drinking whisky out of a plastic bottle and sharing their cigarettes with the Ausspanplatz amputee – a scarred and twisted man with one leg and half an arm, who drinks all day in the shade of the shop awnings, and never seems to sleep.

As I came around the corner, the nearest girl leaned off her perch, stretching the bit of her skirt that was trying to keep her arse in check to the limits. She was staring at me with her eyes squeezed half shut, as if this would help her to see me more clearly. She looked as if she had spotted a potential meal on the run. I almost expected her tongue to shoot out and grab me by the leg. Slowly, her arm came up. She pointed, mouth agape, at my approaching figure.

“Look! Look at that!” she shrieked in mirth as I cycled past. Her friends all fell about laughing. I advanced down Independence Avenue, their cackles swallowed up by the silence behind me.

Two minutes later, a car full of girls pulled up beside me at a stop light. It only took once glance, and they were instantly incapacitated by the hilarity of me.

I don’t know what was so funny. I even got off my bike to check the back of my skirt, to see if it was tucked into my knickers, but it all seemed fine. I came to the only conclusion I could: the essence of comedy runs through my veins. I am instantly amusing to everyone who sees me. This is quite a burden to have to bear, especially at this stage in my life, when I want to be taken a bit more seriously. Still, we all have our crosses.

I bet I’m worth a fortune on Ebay.